


De la chance

by gigiree



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Baking, F/M, Knitting, LadyNoir - Freeform, Marichat, Romance, adrienette - Freeform, ladrien
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:51:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5282732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Plagg says Ladybugs and Black Cats never end up together. Despite being shown several "memories" of past Black Cats, Adrien begs to differ and sets out to break the pattern. Complications occur when he finds himself catching an extra set of feelings for his kindly classmate. Remember, black cats aren't unlucky. They might just have really good last minute luck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. La doleur exquise

The first time he tries to catch her attention is the first time he meets her. 

He was smitten after her first one liner. 

And then she had kicked their shared enemy’s butt into oblivion. He knew by his frantically beating heart singing a chorus of lovesick  _lub dubs_ that he was a goner.

But his flirtations, time after time had gone amiss. Confidence that he lacked as Adrien, control that he lacked as Chat Noir made it all spew out in the lamest of lines. Consequences be damned. 

This is the folly of youth and tonight has been yet another failed attempt to make his intentions known.

“Luck is a fickle mistress. Not nearly as reliable as quality cheese.” Plagg chides. He floats along, over and around the precariously stacked textbooks on Adrien’s desk. 

Plagg is an ancient, powerful being…or so Adrien’s been told. But when the small specter whines and grouses about the unfairness of life, his tiny black ears flicking in consternation, Adrien doubts.

Regardless, there are moments when he remembers Plagg’s age and he is tempted to accept this seemingly welcome wisdom from the familiar. And Adrien might be very prone to agreeing with this statement in particular had there not been a very important little fact. 

He gives a brief smile, wry and uncertain.

“You’re right, Plagg. Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” 

The question comes from around a mouthful of Gouda; Plagg’s interest on the subject wanes as quickly as the crescent moon outside.

“I don’t want to have her as a mistress. She’ll be my Lady.”

Adrien chuckles as he hears Plagg’s discontent. He mutters something about sappy one-liners and incorrigible black cats, much to Adrien’s amusement and the subject is left behind, to be resolved at a later time when the moon is full and luck is on his side.

 

* * *

 

Black cats have bad luck.

It’s not that they  _are_ bad luck. They have bad luck. The nine lives gifted to all cats are used up quickly by black ones as they stumble through life, ingloriously unfortunate and pitifully boastful as they struggle to maintain a form of dignity.

Black Cats in particular have it worst of all. Because on top of being the embodiment of the animal, they are only human, Nine lives is nothing but a metaphor for surviving close calls and should they die, they die for good.

And just like the countless Black Cats before him, Chat Noir has found the most painful of circumstances. 

“ _La doleur exquise_.” Plagg laughs as yet again he finds his chosen hero moping. The contrariness of the term is laughably simple and elegant all at once. Who had first termed one sided affection as the exquisite pain had been quite the masochist. If the romantic notions embedded into Paris’ very history were to be followed, then what Adrien was experiencing was common enough and therefore not a worrying point worth losing sleep or cheese over.

But Plagg forgets that emotions consume. The Akuma are proof enough of that. And Adrien is lonely and pained that the only one he can confide in has too much of an orange and blue morality to sympathize with him.

He’s tried to tell her. Oh how many times and how many ways and under how many moons and suns has he tried to tell her.

“This sucks.” Adrien says.

Because he’s shut down nearly every time he tries. Insincere he is most certainly not, even if he is stranger, wilder and much less…constrained that normal as Chat Noir.

It’s not LadyBug herself that rejects him so soundly. 

It’s circumstance.

The last time he had tried to confess sincerely, he had ended up saying the worst things imaginable. Words seething, writhing, and filled with so much hate, that even if he can’t remember everything, he remembers those words.

Apologies had been waved off, but he hadn’t been blind to the few times afterwards where she would flinch at the tiniest flexing of his claws or whenever the word “cataclysm” came up.

“Perhaps, you just need some good luck?” Plagg offers, especially phlegmatic as he floats contentedly with half-closed eyes after dining on Camembert. 

Adrien does not answer, because the suggestion seems absurd enough. 

“Did the guys before me…ever have the same situation?” 

Plagg slides his gaze languidly at Adrien from underneath heavy lids, a strange mix of curiosity and pity swimming in those terribly bright eyes of his. 

“Maybe…”

Adrien hates when Plagg hits this kind of mood. Mischievous and eager to play, Plagg is a bit insensitive on the subject of human emotions. There is something altogether alien and fay in the way he plays and speaks when he becomes mercurial, and Adrien would be lying if he said it didn’t scare him a bit.

“Never mind. If you’re going start with the whole “I am an ancient wise being with no concept of humanity, then I’m done.”

Adrien waves him off, and instead pulls one of his well read textbooks towards him to get some work done for class tomorrow.

Plagg pretends to go back to sleep, but pity makes him give a last glance at his chosen because none of the Black Cats before him had ever succeeded in making Luck their Lady.

The LadyBug has never ended up with the Black Cat, after all.

He drifts off to sleep, memories threaded into dreams unfathomable as the scratching of a pencil on paper fills the silence of the room.


	2. Malheureusement…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Black Cats are NOT bad luck. They just have bad luck. It is a long legacy, but perhaps it’s a matter of perspective.

_Almost._..Almost is a very bitter sweet word.

It’s the idea of nearly, not quite ,but close enough to see what you’re missing.

It’s the skipped opportunities parading right in front of a helpless grasp.

It’s the feeling of her hand slipping through his trembling fingers, rain running and hiding her fear as it mingles with tears. His claws tear into the damp cotton cloth, crimson dyed fabric blending in with the scratches he leaves on her skin in his desperation.

It’s the feeling when he can only whisper  _no_ , beg and plead with whatever deity has given him such rotten luck.

It’s the almost as he fails and she falls into the river, red clad hand still reaching until she disappears beneath the roiling flood.

It’s the time when he almost saved and certainly lost his Lady.

 

* * *

 

  
Adrien wakes to a bright sun. Pleasantly warm sunbeams drift through the window, typical of a spring day  in the city. His alarm is ringing, loud and obnoxious.

He does not notice any of this.

He remembers rain. Rain and dark and angry water greedily taking away everything.

Instead he looks down at his still shaking hands. Dull human nails have replaced the ineffectual claws that had cut deep into red and skin to keep something that he could not.  
  
“It was a dream. Just a dream.”

He reassures himself, and it rings true when he remembers his terrified expression mirrored in LadyBug’s wide brown eyes.

Wide brown eyes set in a lovely tan face. 

“Not a dream. A memory.” Plagg corrects as he languidly floats through the air near the head of Adrien’s bed.

Adrien brushes back several strands of hair that have become stuck to his forehead with sweat. He can barely think, barely eke out, what he wants to say because questions keep bouncing around, begging to be answered.

“Who’s memory?” He finally manages, and it comes out a bit hoarse and breathless, the gaping maw of loss still a distant pang.

“A different Black Cat.” Plagg shrugs, sighing quietly as he drifts in lazy circles. “Now can we have breakfast?”

He doesn’t know what drives him to it. Perhaps it’s the feeling of desperation, an aching, gnawing, raw thing writhing painfully in his chest that drives him to pluck Plagg from the air.

The little specter does not look scared, but there is some kind of dim amusement in his bright eyes. He merely waits for his chosen to do something, because the sooner they get this over with, the sooner cheese will make its appearance.

“Plagg. Did you give me that memory?”

Plagg hums thoughtfully, before answering.

“Kind of. Sort of.”

He wriggles from Adrien’s loose grasp, placing spectral paws on the his fingers for purchase.

But the look of pain on Adrien’s face stirs the tidbits of pity that still remain in him. Millenia have dulled his sympathies. Loss has become a standard and an accepted risk. He forgets that to every Black Cat, the experience is new. It’s vivid and scary, and Adrien may not be the youngest Black Cat to have ever pranced across rooftops, but he is one of the youngest.

“I keep all the important ones. The ones you make when you’re Chat Noir.” Plagg says a bit wearily. “I’ve kept theirs too.”

“Why?”

Plagg is smart enough to know that Adrien asks why he showed him this memory, not why he keeps them.

“Because you needed to see. The Black Cat never keeps the LadyBug. One way or another, they are separated in the end.”

Devastation is hard hitting. It coils up Adrien’s insides, blocks up his throat and stops his thoughts until his usual glimmer of optimism is as overcast and as gloomy as the nightmare he had had.

But still there’s the glimmer. It chimes faintly and winks blue and red and black, and he makes a very important decision.

He’s done with almosts. Chat Noir has bad luck, but Adrien Agreste has determination, and that’s all there is to it.

Plagg hides a growing smile when he sees the change in his host’s demeanor.

Perhaps there is some luck among the misfortune after all.  
  


* * *

 

Marinette has an interesting outlook on the concept of luck. 

It’s all a matter of perspective. 

Stuff happens in life. Choices made and circumstances changed make sure that hardly anything turns out as expected. She’s figured it out by now. If you expect everything to turn out a certain way, you’ll be very disappointed.

Case in point, the Akuma possessed people. 

Dreams shattered, expectations disappointed, impossible wishes all make them vulnerable. And yes it’s cruel for them to be taken advantage of, but it’s a matter of perspective. 

Luck is luck. Chance is chance. Life deals terrible hands sometimes; she has no right to complain. But what you do with that luck or in spite of it makes all the difference.

As LadyBug, luck becomes less of a concept and more of an accepted fact. She’s lucky. She knows it. It comes with the territory. So it’s not too often that she becomes wary of slip ups or falling by accident.

Chat Noir on the other hand is a different story. Clumsily elegant and laughably unpredictable, he almost lands wrong many times. He almost gets hurt many times.

He’s lucky in that respect. Like his namesake, he lands on his feet. A bit strangely, a bit shakily, but he always manages to land on his feet.  
So there is no reason why he should be so irritatingly paranoid today.  
She’s noticed it a few times, how he tries to subtly edge himself between her and La Seine. Even as they race across rooftops, too high for the soft currents of the winding river to be much of a danger, he places himself in between her and the water.

It’s broad daylight. She can see just fine. And it’s a little funny, the way he tries to make less of a show of the whole thing, but each time she moves closer to the edge of the rooftops or the side of the railings, he runs that much faster to keep his position. 

This and the heat of the day irk her.

The spring morning is noticeably warm. So much so, that a sheen of sweat has begun to glimmer across her brow and she can feel beads of moisture begin to run down her neck. 

No one swims in the river. Not here where the city runs off and boats toot along at a leisurely pace. But still she’s caught between the strangest desire to jump in or push Chat Noir into it, if it would mean relief from one of the two things peeving her on this patrol.

“I thought cats don’t like water, Kitty?” She quips, a slight edge to her tone because it is hot behind her mask and she can’t maneuver as freely with Chat being so silly.

“Just admiring the lovely sun on the river, my Lady.” He answers back, just a little too quickly, too practiced for her to believe him. His words float gently between them, drifting on the wind rushing past them as they leap and run and dive. It’s too gentle. Too soft.

He’s a terrible liar. It’s kind of cute, actually. 

LadyBug’s small huff of laughter is swallowed up by the throng of sounds coming from the city. It’s hidden behind the squeaking of tires and the merchants and the boat horns and the conversation of crowds. But Chat Noir is not a monicker without some clout and his ears catch the lilting sound as it fades away.

 _To keep that laugh alive, I will be as ‘silly’ as I need to._  

* * *

 

The rest of the patrol proves fairly uneventful. It’s a rare morning when they find the city at peace. No Akuma or vulnerable person in sight, they decide to spend the last few minutes left of their scheduled patrol sitting against the eaves of a particularly layered roof.

Several brick laden chimney posts rise around them, mercifully not smoking and wonderfully tall enough to ensconce them in relative privacy. 

LadyBug sits with her knees curled to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs to keep them from sliding down the steep slope of gray tiles underneath her. The red and black of her suit is eye catching enough, but in the glint of the sunbeams, it fits. Color upon color is a good way to blend in, which leaves Chat Noir at a slight disadvantage.

He stretches back languidly, his movement vaguely mirroing a lazy Plagg in the mornings.

But there’s still tension, and he feels his heart beat jump to block his throat when he sees LadyBug stretch out a hand, grasping at bits of sky she imagines she can reach.

_Almost. A hand reaching past roiling rapids._

His wide eyed stare does not go unnoticed.

LadyBug is astute. Its one of the many things he loves about her. But he thinks that it might not be too much to ask for one day of oblivious disinterest from her.

“What’s wrong?” She asks. Straight to the point. Quick. Staccato and like business, but she says it sweetly. Worry laces her voice and he thinks it unfair that she should care so much when there’s nothing of substance behind those feelings.

He assumes wrongly.

“You’re scaring me, Chat.” She says quietly, looking at the sun glinting on the ebbing water streaming down the river in the distance. She doesn’t look at him, but somehow that makes him hurt all the more.

Chat Noir laughs at that. He laughs at his misfortune. He laughs at the legacy of failures he’s been left with. He laughs at his attempts today to keep her from drowning, the dream-memory still playing in his mind’s eye.

His laughter turns soft. Sad. It trails off into an unspoken wish, humorless and empty.

“I had a nightmare.” Is his only explanation, and there’s an ageless despair in his bright green eyes that reminds LadyBug of Tikki when she’s being mercurial.

“That’s…It must have been bad.”

“It was.”

He sees it on the tip of her tongue. She wants to ask what it was about. What could have possibly made him so paranoid and scared, especially when the sun shone bright and there was no enemy to fight today?

He answers her unspoken question in the same she respected his unspoken wish.

“I dreamed that you drowned. That you slipped through my fingers and you drowned.”

Her silence is unbearable. He can take her slight rejections, her funny put downs, her admonishments. Anything but the pity that stretches between them, the sympathetic looks she gives him when she  _almost_  believes him to be sincere.

But when he looks back at her, there’s no pity in those blue eyes of hers.  
They shine with the same scintillating light as the sunbeams playing on the water’s surface. They shine and they are comforting and understanding and…trusting.

“I won’t drown, silly Kitty. Not if you’re there to catch me.”  

Her grin is hesitant, but her words are playfully kind. They are meant to convey solidarity, a trust that he had maybe thought existed is now proven by her very own words.

He answers her with a wide smile of his own, edges reaching so far as to crinkle his eyes behind his mask. He winks at her.

“Cats can’t swim.”

“I know. But you’re not a cat. You’re Chat Noir.”

It’s almost a direct compliment.  _Almost._

And just like that, she turns back to gaze at the river. Chat’s worry is far from alleviated, but her trust has rekindled his determination. It’s fanned the spark, flames licking at a crazily beating heart.

 _Almost_  may not be so bad, he decides. It’s all just a matter of perspective.


	3. fait a la main

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knitting...fluff...stuff

“It’s cold tonight,  _mi Catarina_.” Says the Black Cat, her dark curls tossed by the frigid wind. But she stands still in the gale, her dark cape and her hair the only things moving.

Her companion does not answer. She merely brings up a silk red fan, ribbing snapping open to hide her flushed cheeks. She wants to say it’s because of the cold, here in the capital under dim lamplight and outside of the gala in their honor. But she knows that’s not why her heart races and her cheeks redden.

The LadyBug is tired of playing. She is tired of the roundabout games this kitty cat maneuvers. It hurts. It hurts so much because she loves her so much, and the kitty is coy. The Black Cat is a trusted ally, but such a  _fickle_  lover _._

She acts the same way she delivers her flirtations, smooth and slippery. Sensuous and difficult to pin down, the LadyBug fights her emotions for the kitty.

It’s only when the Black Cat gifts her a messily embroidered hand kerchief that she begins to believe in her sincerity. 

She clutches it to her dress, black-dotted and red clad fingers knotting into the rough cotton square of fabric with  _La Gata Negra_ ’s monogram threaded in silver on the corner.

They kiss under extinguished lamplight, the moon full and generous with her luck tonight.

* * *

Plagg takes pity on his chosen. It’s no huge effort to share these things, but it is to sort through millenia of memories to find the right one. Encouraging enough to provide some sort of comfort and sweet enough without giving false hope.

Adrien wakes to weak sun drifting through his wide open window, barely there light filtering through a mass of gray clouds. He wears a look of perplexed wonder as he recalls his dream. Stifling a yawn, he pulls his twisted sheets from under him and asks his first question.

“Plagg. I thought you said that the LadyBug and the Black Cat never stay together?”

“They don’t.”

Adrien ponders this for a moment, and decides that the unhappy ending of this story may not be worth pursuing. But Plagg does not give him reprieve and answers his curiosity.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back, after all.

“Life takes them down different paths. They fall for others outside their masks. When it is all done and the titles have been passed on to a new LadyBug and a new Black Cat, they separate. Nothing tragic, simply life.” Plagg explains, and there’s a certain wistfulness to his tone. 

It makes Adrien wonder if this is really such a mundane thing. How can it be when it is the repetition of a legacy? A fulfillment of an end fated to rip apart fire-forged ties.

“Why show me it then?” 

“To give you some ideas.” Plagg says simply before rushing into the closet to get Adrien’s clothes for the day out and ready. The sooner they get downstairs, the sooner breakfast starts. And Plagg counts himself lucky that in France, cheese is a very regular part of the morning meal.

Adrien is left to contemplate a course of action. It is one thing to declare love, it is one thing to risk life and limb for it, it is another to give gifts in its name. And luckily for Adrien,  _Noel_  approaches and the seasons of good tidings is round the corner.

“I might have a few.” He says to himself, unaware of the pleased expression lighting up Plagg’s bright eyes.

* * *

All roads lead to Marinette.

Kind, cute, adorably shy Marinette.

He has ideas, but no plans for execution. No clues as to how to make a handmade anything come to fruition beneath his clumsy fingers (claws).

He asks Nino. Nino points him to Marinette, arguably the most adept at creating fashion pieces, including simple winter wear. 

But Marinette is a source of confusion for him. She makes him… _uncertain._  

Blue eyes… _blue as the heavens_ …sound familiar?

He questions his racing heart, his reddened cheeks, his quiet content when she sits behind him in class. LadyBug makes him feel adventurous, larger than life. Marinette is comfort, familiar, and warmth. LadyBug is freedom. Marinette is hearth.

So he asks Alix. She merely smiles knowingly and points at Marinette across the courtyard before heading off on her rollerblades, laughing softly at his predicament.

And consciously or unconsciously, he follows the road to Marinette.

He asks Alya, and he grows fearful because the gleam in her eyes reminds him of Plagg and teasing and he lacks confidence as Adrien to slip his way out of her reporter-like tendencies.

“You know, my answer will be the same. Ask Marinette. She’ll help you.” She muses, and much to his horror, she sends a quick message to the girl in question. He barely catches a glimpse of it under Alya’s impossibly fast fingers, but he can see a few words.

_‘Adrien…help…knitting…present…he’ll text you.’_

Before he can question it, before he can ask for details, Alya has ripped a tiny piece of paper from her notebook, written out a series of numbers and dropped it into his clammy palms.

“Here’s her number. Text her. She’s usually free after school.” Alya instructs, all business in a way that reminds him a little of LadyBug. She stuffs her belongings into her bag haphazardly, expression a little hard, a little serious. She’s in reporter mode, and if there’s anything to say about that, it’s that she’s kind of scary. Not Lady Wifi scary, but scary nonetheless.

It’s only when he hears her phone ring again, and sees that it is Marinette who has responded to her, that her expression devolves into softness. It’s fond amusement and Adrien can see the affection between the two in her gentle smile.

_‘Calm down…silly.’_

He slips away quietly, glad to be rid of Alya’s scrutinizing gaze and wondering slightly why Marinette needed to be calmed down.

He makes his way to the school’s exit, the tiny piece of paper clutched tightly in his unsteady grip.

* * *

“Mom, why?” Is all Marinette can say when sees the bakery’s newest addition to their baked goods,

Sugar cookies. LadyBug and Chat Noir sugar cookies.

It’s positively horrific. Her mother has taken to lovingly drawing their faces with colored icing. She spreads it across the crumbly, soft, warm surfaces of the freshly out-of-the-oven cookies. There’s a mess of reds, greens, and blacks spread across the counter.

“They’re very popular throughout the city! These have been heavily requested lately and they’re the right colors for the holiday season.” Sabine explains cheerily, her eyes twinkle with amusement as she continues to skillfully decorate.

“I…I…”

Marinette is at a loss, but she has to admit that her mother is skilled and has done a great job with their caricatures.

But she’s startled. There’s something missing as she looks at the Chat Noirs with their large green eyes and tiny, flirty smiles.

Without a word, she takes a few tubes from the counter, and sets to work. She adds in a few white highlights in his eyes, a little quirk to his lips. She makes his hair fall more into messier layers. 

“There.” She says in satisfaction when she’s done, and Sabine claps happily when she sees Marinette’s handiwork.

“It’s perfect.” 

“Mmmm…It’s close enough.” Marinette shrugs, before dusting off the sugar from her usual gray blazer.

“They say that when you truly love someone, it isn’t hard to pick up the small details that make them beautiful.” Sabine remarks with a sly smile and a happy little hum. She picks up the tray blithely, singing lightly as she makes her way to the front room to place the cookies on display.

Marinette suppresses a shudder. There were times where her mother was little too observant. For the sake of her secret identity, she would need to be more careful in the future. But there’s something about her mother’s statement, a niggling word that bothers her sensible thoughts.

Tikki finally slips into sight from behind a honey jar, a teasing grin appearing just as suddenly.

“Love, Marinette?”

“Love? Not in that sense.” She chides, shaking her head at the absurdity. She wants to protest more. To tell Tikki that what she feels for Chat is nothing more than admiration and care more worthwhile for them as teammates. 

Her Saturday morning peace is interrupted when she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket. It buzzes unpleasantly loud in the quiet of the yet-to-open bakery. She checks the message and nearly drops it in her stupefaction.

_“NEW MESSAGE FROM: Adrien <3″_

In a quickness nearly rivaling Alya’s, she opens the message and scans the keywords.

_‘Knitting…thank you…today…12:00 pm…lunch?’_

“TODAY?!” She squeaks, and her quickly done mental math places the “Day Adrien Becomes My Friend and Might Fall for Me” as today, Saturday.

She counts on her hands again, and realizes that when she had first gotten the message and replied, she had counted the days wrong in her excitement.

She takes a moment, pushing against the rosy joy blooming large in her chest to breathe. 

“Breathe again.” Tikki advises, a bit worried at Marinette’s pale face and silence.

Marinette becomes animated at that. She quickly types in a reply, resisting the urge to add in a winky face and she wonders if that is Chat Noir’s influence or merely a part of her growing confidence.

_“Yes…Sounds great!…See you later.”_

And it does sounds great, she just really needs to clean her room. With a jolt, she remembers and flies up the stairs, Tikki laughing behind her as she follows.

* * *

It’s awkward. Gosh, is it awkward.

Conversation is stilted, blockaded by the smallest of small talk. 

Adrien, bless his polite little soul, is too stiff. He looks out of place, sitting on her desk chair across from her bed. He tries his best not to touch anything, placing his hands on his lap and tapping his fingers distractedly as he waits for her reply.

It’s like playing tennis, back and forth goes the conversation. Automatic, stuck and stagnant.

_‘Bad Luck: 1, Marinette: Love…love as in 0. Zip. Rien.’_

Thankfully, or maybe not, Sabine’s genial knock and offer of snacks has been taken to heart. She knocks lightly, and Marianne takes the reprieve with insurmountable zest.

“Thank you.” She says as she takes the carefully set silver tray from her mother’s steady grip.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dupain-Cheng.” Adrien echoes politely.

Marinette notes with embarrassment that refreshments include a fragrant tea blend placed in delicate cups with golden filigree and a few of the LadyBug and Chat Noir sugar cookies.

“Marinette decorated these ones.” 

Marinette did indeed decorate these ones. Specifically, the Chat Noirs with the shining eyes and the extra quirked smiles.

She can’t hide the bright flush that rises along with the steam from the teacups. It’s inevitable. Luck has abandoned her. Flown on spotted wings to who knows where. She can only hope it’s doing someone else some good, perhaps another lovestruck girl is striking gold while she talks to her crush.

Sabine’s mischievous smile only widens when she sees Adrien rush to help Marinette with the tray, insisting on taking the tray and setting it down on the cleared workbench area behind him.

“Call me if you need anything.” Sabine reminds them again, and then she leaves with a conspiratorial wink to her flustered daughter.

Marinette rings her hands in consternation, before realizing with dawning horror that Adrien has picked up one of the LadyBugs. 

“I uh…I think they’re popular this time of year. Because of the colors.” She tries to explain, but Adrien merely places down the sweet softly back on the plate, only to gaze admiringly at one of the Chat Noirs.

“These are very nicely done. I mean, it looks like me.” He says without thinking.

Marinette blinks in confusion for a bit, a slight suspicion creeping up her thoughts.

But there’s  _nothing_ , nothing familiar in the way Adrien smiles or speaks. There is none of the languid cheer or confident flirting or easy manner that Chat Noir has.

“Y-You?” She asks, sure as anything that he had merely slipped up.

Adrien freezes, tension so palpable in his frame that she can see his fingers trembling, crumbling into the softness of the cookie very easily.

“I uh…I meant  _him_. It looks a lot like him.” He corrects hastily, and Marinette’s internal relief is reflected just as precisely on his face when she believes him.

“Chat Noir  _does_  have green eyes.” She jokes, and Adrien’s laughter is a bit forced.

“Yes. He does. But can you imagine me, running through Paris in a black suit. I don’t think I have his agility or his luck.”

She brushed back her bangs, trying to picture elegantly poised Adrien, quiet Adrien yowling and making very bad puns in the moonlight.

She laughs at that.

“No. I think the resemblance stops at blonde hair and green eyes. He’s too unlucky to be you. He falls a lot and he makes the silliest puns.”

Adrien’s face becomes contemplative.  _‘Too unlucky.’_

“How do you know…about his luck?” He asks softly.

She taps her finger against her chin, thinking out loud, a little more comfortable on the subject.

“Alya’s blog and the videos people film. He almost always get hurt. But he always manages to land on his feet. So I don’t know. I might take back that he’s unlucky. Maybe he has very good last minute luck.”

Luck is perspective. Had Marinette been aware of Adrien’s home life, she might have thought differently. But as it is, she sees what he had crafted so carefully. Adrien Agreste is half him and half of what he had been expected to be. Chat Noir is half him, and half Plagg’s influence. 

It’s becoming hard to separate these facets, and he fears for the day when one of those precious to him will discover the other side of the mask they have not been privy to. He fears that they cannot love him in his entirety, and it is that fear that makes nearly regret coming here.

Rejection… _real_  rejection of his gift is a very serious threat.

But Marinette is more insightful than he knows.

“But I think you both have courage. He is brave as a hero. You are brave to be doing  _this.”_ She gestures to her workbench, where there, already laid out, are two pairs of knitting needles and black and red yarn, alternating colors.

“Not too many guys might do this. Especially not a hand knit scarf. I’m sure your friend will appreciate it very much.” She says quickly, just in case she might have offended any masculine sensibilities. Really though, gendered activities are her least favorite things. If you have something you enjoy, feel free to do it so long as it doesn’t hurt someone else.

Quickly, before she loses her built up gravitas, she excuses herself and reaches behind him to grasp the knitting needles and spools of yarn.

Adrien sits patiently, a strange heat suffusing his cheeks when he realizes she is close enough to smell spun sugar and catch the small dusting of freckles that trails its way up her neck and to her cheeks.

“L-let’s start?” Marinette suggests a little too happily, but he takes the distraction, ignoring the feeling of guilt that wells up at the thought that Marinette is cute. 

The colors of the yarn are all too encompassing and he almost regrets having requested these particular colors.

Thankfully, he finds that knitting will take all of his concentration.

He can almost ignore the pleasantness of Marinette’s fingers on his own, guiding him to weave the points through the tiny looping threads. He drops a stitch so many times, that she unthinkingly grabs the needles and yarn from him and continues her tutelage, a firm but sweet look of concentration upon her face.

Her pout is adorable, and the seriousness and focus recall to mind some of LadyBug’s more self-possessed moments. There is an easy surety to the way Marinette knits and purls, her movements quick and practiced.

The scarf’s beginning takes shape underneath skilled hands. It grows in length steadily, loud and clear in its intentions to be made. 

It practically sings itself into existence, coming just as readily as the slight drizzle that begins to pepper Marinette’s window.

The easy  _click clack_  of the metal needles is relaxing, and by the time Marinette hands him a piece with ten completed rows, he’s already been lost to the steady rhythm, the slightly dazed look of his face letting her know that she may have lost him somewhere in row four.

To her lack of knowledge, she has lost him. But it’s to her lilting voice as she murmurs small encouragements to herself as she works. It’s to her soft smiles and little cheers when she finishes a row. It’s to the shine of her hair and helpfulness that she’s lost him.

“I think if I do anymore, the feelings won’t be the same. Y-you have to make it.” She explains, a little hastily and a little embarrassed that she got so carried away. “You have to put your feelings into it for them to reach the person.”

He wonders if he’ll be able to fit in  _All_  his feelings into this gift. His confusion, his care, his gratefulness, his luck, his faith, his fear, his _love_. It’s a lot of expectation to place on a mere scarf, but he hopes it can convey what he needs to, because he really doesn’t want to end up as just another memory in Plagg’s collection. Another failed legacy to give false hope to future Black Cats.

If she rejects him, he cannot do anything about that. The best he can do is give his all and make something by his own two hands.

Marinette seems to believe he can, because she hands him the needles and the piece with such earnest and sincere well-wishing, that he begins to believe in it too.

In the same way he believes anything is possible with his Lady, he begets the same hope with Marinette. He brushes aside his uncertainty in the moment, just so he can place his fingers over hers  _kind-of-not-really-on-purpose_ as he takes the needles from her. 

“Thank you, Marinette for everything.”

His voice is soft, sincere and genuine. The politeness from earlier is still there, but it’s a manner of well-honed propriety and not a shallow stiffness customary between strangers.

They are no longer playing tennis. It’s just a conversation between friends.

 _‘Or so they tell themselves.’_ Tikki and Plagg think from where they are hidden.

She walks Adrien downstairs, to the front of the bakery. Mercifully, there are no customers. (Whether that bodes well for the day’s sales is another story.) 

Her father and mother give tenderly joyous farewells, handing him a bag of pastries that he insists on paying for and will not succeed in purchasing.

After all is said and done, and he’s stepping out the door, the bell tinkling merrily behind them, Marinette gives him some last minute advice.

Her eyes are large and a bit sad, brimming with an emotion and wishfulness he can’t quite place. It makes him hurt. A lot.

“Adrien…make sure your friend knows your gift is from you. Don’t leave behind regrets.”

He wants to say “ _I won’t”_  Or  _“Did that happen to you?”_

But her sadness is palpable, despite her smile and without thinking, he blurts out.

“I’ll make you one too.”

He runs away before she can respond, paper bag full of pastries and knitting needles and yarn flapping haphazardly behind him as he does.

He’ll need the smoothest of all texts to explain this one away. And he is egged on by Plagg’s muffled laughter coming from the folds of his jacket.

Perhaps making one’s own luck was harder than he had thought.


	4. au hasard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Adrien has trouble knitting and happenstance is scary, but in the end, all one can do is make a wish, say their piece, and hope

“How do you feel, kitty cat?”

The question is strange in its banality. She is strange in her languor. It’s another uneventful day in fall, and the business of the season, for all the red and green tinged joy makes them just a bit tired.

This is their reprieve. The moments when they have power at the tips of their fingers. Luck and agility gifted to them beyond their most vivid dreams.

They use it for freedom of a different sort. A quiet sort of peace settles over them. They are sure in their strength and sure of their privacy. There is not much need to keep warm, not when their suits cling so closely.

The roof of one of Paris’ older apartment building lends itself to their reveries, old and with multiple levels to the slate gray roof. The chimney stacks rise around them in their favorite way, tall and large and obscuring.

It’s warm too. Winter has set on the city, gently like the mists that hang over La Seine in the mornings and the people inside the building have lit their fires, bright and hot. The smoke that curls and fades like Christmas wishes is pleasant smelling.

“I feel…comfortable. Very comfortable, My Lady.” Chat answers, stretching languidly against one of the chimney stacks. He has to stop himself from adding  _‘with you.’_  The radiating heat feels wonderful against the thin material of his suit. He feels fine. He feels content. He’s here, sitting side by side with the person he cares for enjoying the scents of a Parisian winter.

Ladybug’s smile is wistful. She’s never been one for over the top expressiveness. That’s Chat Noir’s specialty. Her emotions are deep; subtle and kept under cover behind small smiles and delicate movements.

Chat Noir has learned to read her like a book.

More precisely, like a book written in a foreign language. A foreign language that has the same alphabet as his mother tongue and maybe shares some root words, but still another language.

So he has to ask…

“And you? How do you feel, My Lady?”

She wants to say so many things when he asks her that. But the words…the things she knows she feels when she’s with him, they just won’t come out. LadyBug is muted for the sake of focus. LadyBug cannot feel as deeply as Marinette. Tikki says it’s a defense mechanism. Marinette thinks it’s awful.

Her clouded gaze shifts over to him the slightest bit, and he can see so many things, muted and distant. They shift and shine dimly in those pretty blue eyes of hers.

“I don’t feel very much at all.” She sighs, and then turns to look back at the gray clouds, tracing the silver linings that she knows aren’t always there.

He tilts his head, curious and a bit hurt because her melancholy is just as infectious as her joy. Wide green eyes take in every bit of her body language, noting the slight slump of her shoulders, the edges of her pretty mouth curled in dissatisfaction.

But it’s all so…muted.

It’s like watching her through a scratched glass screen. Like watching her smiles and affection behind stained glass covered in frost. Colorful, but not vibrant. Alive, but not vivid.

He knows she can  _almost_  love him. Perhaps she does, in a way. He feels it in the way she leans against him sometimes, in the way she seems to smile biggest when she’s teasing him. But  _almosts_  are sad, and he doesn’t like to indulge in them all too often. He tries to control them, but it’s hard. Because happenstance has its own agenda and luck is not his friend.

All this wraps him up in a silent reverie.

Her lips quirk into an apologetic smile when she notices his silence.

“Sorry. That didn’t make much sense.”

She’s closing herself off again. It’s much more obvious this time. There are no clever rejoinders to battle his flirtations. There are no sly, little quips to stun him into quiet admiration. It’s just a plush kind of sadness, falling softly like new snow to blanket her other emotions.

Before he can stop himself, he reaches across the space that separates them. They’re leaning against the same chimney, so it’s not much to boast about. He places his hand on hers, much more slowly, much more gently than when he wanted to place a kiss on her knuckles.

His claws are careful, almost hesitant as they curl around her awfully tiny fingers. LadyBug does  _big_  things with such small fingers. Just another thing he loves about her. So he’s grateful that he get’s this chance to talk to her. To be so close to the hero that he knows best.

“It made some sense, My Lady. It might help to talk about it.” He suggests carefully, but there’s a slight wobble at the end of his words. He’s scared. And LadyBug finds it endearing in the strangest of ways.

She doesn’t curl her fingers around his…but she doesn’t pull her hand away either.

She realizes that if there is anybody in the entire expanse of the universe who can understand, it just might be the earnest person beside her. So she begins.

“When I’m LadyBug, I’m strong. I’m lucky and know what to do. But I can’t  _feel_ things, you know? Not like I can when I’m… _me. Everything’s silent._ It’s muted. It’s like I can hear my feelings in my head, but I can’t experience them.”

He blinks in surprise, because he feels exactly the opposite. All his life, he’s repressed, bound and strangled any exuberance. It was expected of him, of his family. Freedom was a commodity and it was in short supply. Over time, his feelings had become muted as Adrien, a little shallow sometimes, a little too soft to do much but cause him the slightest of pangs. Friends are the exception. It’s why he loves being with Nino so much. But when they are gone, and it’s just him and Plagg in a too big dining room with the fanciest foods, he’s muted.

“In a funny way, I kind of understand. But for me, it’s quite the opposite. Everything is  _sharper_ , more vivid when I am  _here_. When I’m…me, I’m dull. It’s a…break for me to be here. It feels like home.” 

He shrugs quickly, rolling out his shoulders to give himself something to do while he waits for her to respond. He’s careful though to keep his left hand where it is, placed warmly around her own.

He gets his answer when her fingers tighten around his,the slowly growing smile on her face telling him all he needs to know.

_‘Thank you, Chat Noir. You’re like home too.’_

* * *

“Hero of a city as large as Paris, and yet you can’t do something as simple as knit?” Adrien mutters to himself as he once again undoes a whole row, painstakingly undoing half an hour of work. He sits cross legged across his bed, back aching because he’s been sitting bent forward for the longest time trying to get past row number twenty of his project.

Plagg has taken to playing with the extra yarn, tangling himself in the unwound spool and purring rhythmically. It fits with the pounding of the rain outside, easy and comfortable.

When Adrien reaches a particularly difficult knot, he heaves a sigh of frustration and gently places the needles and scarf-in-progress to one side. He reaches across the bed for his phone and with the ease of something now an everyday occurrence, sends a message to Marinette.

_‘Help…the scarf will be the end of me. There’s a knot.’_

He waits impatiently for her reply, anxiousness and excitement tangling up inside him just as surely as Plagg is entangled in the yarn.

Plagg laughs at his eagerness.

“You look more like a puppy than a cat.”

“Shh. Not now, Plagg.” Adrien says without much bite in his tone. He’s too piqued on her response to do much more than that.

The telltale buzzing of a message received takes what little of his attention remains. He nearly drops his phone in his rush to read Marinette’s reply.

_‘Did you try to undo it using the knitting needle? :)’_

“Oh.”

He feels a rush of embarrassment, his cheeks flushing because that smiling face on his phone appears to be laughing at him, and he can imagine Marinette thinking what a simpleton he is, no matter how nice she may be, because really, why hadn’t he thought of that?

He quickly does as she suggests, finding the knot giving way much more easily to the prodding of a needle than to the harsh pulling of his unskilled fingers.

_“It worked! thank you. ;)”_

He presses send without another thought. It’s only after when she sends back  _‘no problem :)’_ that he realizes his mistake.

“Oh no…no..no… _merde_ …I sent a winking face. Plagg, I sent a winking face?!”

His incredulity knows no bounds, and as much as he would like to say this is all Plagg’s influence, he knows it isn’t.

It takes him a while to calm down and continue knitting again.

* * *

He blinks owlishly at the bag she has just handed him. It’s cellophane decorated with tiny silver swirls. He carefully feels the contents, claws rubbing a bit unpleasantly against the plastic wrap. He can make out the barest outlines of cookies through the transparent red.

“They’re just treats…because you’re such a good kitty cat.” Ladybug teases, flicking one of his cat ears lightly. She dances away from him before he can gather himself and attempt anymore intimate contact.

He’s struck speechless for once, and the drizzle surrounding them is more of a mist than anything, and it settles delicately on him, on his Lady and on the pretty wrapping of the baked goods.

“Thank you, My Lady.”

He is methodical as he unties the curling green ribbon from around the top, the knots giving way far more easily beneath his claws than the knitting knot had done earlier in the week.

His sharp breath mingles with the frigid air, slight condensation blowing from his mouth as he recognizes the cookies.

It’s the two of them…Chat Noir and LadyBug, in perfectly perfect renditions with shining eyes and messy hair and extra quirked smiles.

When she notices his wide eyes and mouth parted in surprise, she shifts a bit uncomfortably.

“They’re really popular, and I thought they were silly and would make a good laugh. They’re from the bakery in the corner of Rue-”

She is cut off when Chat Noir has taken the one with his likeness and uses it to cover her mouth softly. She hums indignantly, her voice muffled by the cookie. And she can barely move, because Chat has encroached upon her space, his bright little smile more real than she’s comfortable with.

“Will you  _eat_  me, My Lady?”

And Ladybug meets the unspoken challenge in his lovely green eyes with one of her own.

She bites a piece off, her lips curling to grasp at the buttery sweet. The icing is sticky and stains her mouth black. She ignores it in favor of taking another bite, this time coming dangerously close to where Chat’s trembling claws grasp the cookie.

She knows she’s close, and there’s a roiling  _something_  in her _,_ something that breaks through all the muted cover of LadyBug. Something more than Marinette and more than LadyBug. That something prompts her to swallow the second bite, and make for a third.

But she doesn’t bite the cookie. Instead, she merely closes her lips over bared teeth, and places a tender kiss on Chat Noir’s fingers.

He automatically drops what is left of his likeness, and his mouth is gaping like a fish caught fresh from La Seine. It’s comical and she ignores what she knows should be absent.

’ _My heart is beating too fast.’_

She wipes her mouth indelicately on the back of her hand as she backs away, eager to leave and get the last word.

“Silly kitty, you’re kind of tasteless. Just like your humor.”

She knows she’s lying. She baked these herself, warm and flaky as they melt at first contact. But Chat Noir has come so close…too close for her liking, and the other day she had been so vulnerable. Their dynamic is changing. She can read it in his look, in the way he’s grown bolder, sidling up to her with a frightening confidence. He’s too sincere for her to disbelieve now. It’s not a thing she’s sure she wants, so she pushes back.

She waves over her shoulder as she leaps and arches into moonlight, her hair painted silver and eyes shining with  _something_ that leaves him sadder than before.

She’s run away again.

* * *

Chat Noir isn’t always with his Lady. On days when his house seems to empty, the sharp, clean edges of the marble counters and new appliances too cold and cutting to be comfortable…on days when he can’t take the silence, he runs. 

He runs and leaps as Chat Noir, alone and suspended among the scintillating haze of a night in the city. A shadow arcing in the space between homes, catching brief glimpses of things he envies with an innocuous jealousy as green as his eyes. Family, warmth, a light other than the sickly, fluorescent one in his room.

LadyBug can’t understand that. He’s heard her mutter so many times about her family. He’s seen the brief, but deep pangs of panic that cross her face when things hit a little too close to home and he’s seen her scanning the fleeing crowds for familiar faces.

So it’s on days like today when he feels really alone, he runs. He pretends that if he arcs high enough he can jump over the moon, catch the tail of a falling star to somewhere else. But he’s found one too many times that his shooting stars are nothing but planes winking through the clouds.

“Wishes or luck, none are mine to have.” He murmurs, a wry smile devolving into a grimace as he examines his claws, twisting them in the dim lighting of the fairy lights on the roof of the bakery.

He knows that Marinette lives here, and he also knows that the bakery is an hour from closing. He knows because this is his third time this week coming as Chat Noir and he is a shameless charmer with a great smile and no guilt on using it on cute girls to get what he needs.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng just happens to be the cute girl in question, and she knows what he wants.

He always wants to buy a few more of the cookies before the day ends. He can’t sleep. He’s been replaying the moment over and over, the feel of her lips sliding against the cool leather of his gloves. The strange halo of luminescence that had bounced from rain drop to drop, creating patches of blue in his Lady’s hair as she leaned for a first bite, then a second bite. Her full mouth stained dark by the icing.

The confusion, the frustration, the cold, wet loneliness that had come crashing upon him when he realized she was just teasing. That there was something more in her that she was fighting, something he could  _almost_  appeal to.

_“Don’t push it. It never ends well when they do.”_

Plagg’s warning had been seriously given, even if it had been from around a mouthful of Gouda.

“I can’t push what’s stuck.” He mutters, more to himself than to the kwami currently nestled inside his ring.

“Maybe if you give it enough momentum to move? Give it some energy to overcome the static friction.” Marinette suggests blithely as she steps through the door to the roof, lifting it high above her head with one hand while she carries his purchase in the other.

His laugh is full and rich when he hears her response. Physics is his favorite subject after all. To have someone pull and tug at his metaphor until it’s been stretched into something delightful is nice.

Marinette hums in satisfaction as she closes the door with her foot, having garnered the desired reaction. There’s a certain softness to her features, a pity laced with comfort that takes away the some of the sting of Chat Noir’s desolation.

He can’t help but lean in slightly when she settles herself next to him, legs curled up to her chest. He looks at her questioningly, and points with his chin to the orange lounge chair sitting expectantly behind them.

She shakes her head and hands him his purchase, the rough brown paper stained with buttery oils that seep satisfactorily. Model diets be damned, he is going to enjoy these treats.

“You know…you wouldn’t have to wait so long if you just walked in through the front like a normal person.” She chides, giving him a grin laced with fond admonishment.

“I like it this way, Princess. I get to see you on a one-on-one basis.”

His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes when he says that.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She says quietly, ignoring his teasing.

He sighs, and he wonders if he sounded so eager and sincere when he had offered Ladybug the same favor. There is something nice about being asked for once, like he’s not the only one working to push past the distance. Marinette is a good friend, to him and to Adrien Agreste.

It’s what he tells himself, even when her weary sigh is let loose from her lips and he can only picture them stained dark and pressed against his gloves.

Marinette is someone he could fall for. Someone he  _should_  fall for. But luck is not his and no matter how much he wishes, his heart beats faster still for his Lady silhouetted against Paris’ horizon.

_‘You’re not being fair. Stop that, Marinette deserves better than half-hearted things.’_

“You deserve better than almosts, Chat Noir.” Marinette murmurs, and it’s melancholy and strangely regretful.

“W-what do you mean?” 

“What I mean is that it’s not fair to expect things to move at all if there’s no real push.”

He is shocked by her near repetition of his thoughts, but happenstance is a funny thing and for tonight, he and Marinette seem to be on the same wavelength. Though it seems to be a common thing between them, especially when he is not Adrien with her. There’s an ease that lurks between them, twisting comfortably until he’s warm enough in the misty evenings sitting by her side, holding flaky pastries and getting advice on things that are as hard as knitting beneath his clumsy social skills.

“So what do I do?” He pleads, once again waiting.

Marinette rolls her shoulders uncomfortably, but her eyes hold that same sadness that had made him promise to knit her a scarf.

“Make sure she knows your feelings. I know you want to give her a present. But presents only go so far without words attached to them.You lay out your cards, your honesty, and you wait.”

“But that’s….”

“Scary, not a surefire way, unpredictable…up to chance?” She suggests, and her droll tone is a bit dreary.

“All of the above.” He laughs humorlessly, his shoulders copying hers to roll out the stiffness. The plastic sound of his suit is out-of-place, uniquely him in the din of the city. His languid stretches send pleasurable shivers down to his legs, and he relishes in the brief control he has of these muscles, tensing and relaxing the tendons.

It’s comforting in the wake of the realization that happenstance takes the lead, and with his luck, may not bode well.

But Adrien is determined. He remembers his Lady, strong and smiling and  _almost_  loving. He remembers her surety, her kindness, her muted sadness. She’s hurting too.

If he gives up, if he does not push hard enough…she will be alone. Perhaps not outside of the mask, but the burden they share is one that gnaws and writhes until it has carved a reluctant place in your life. It is endearing and frustrating and exciting and frightening. And alone…oh alone it is all consuming.

“So I confess?”

Marinette nods sagely.

“In the most honest way possible.”

The spark that comes to him, lights him up in ways too beautiful to ignore, is brilliant. He shoots up, no longer languid. His pupils have dilated until his eyes are nearly black as his hide.

He stands abruptly, pulls her along with him and soon her cheek is pressed against the crook of his neck and his arms are vice-like in their embrace.

“Marinette, You wonderful genius!”

She flops around as he spins her, forgetting that the cookies are underfoot and she sighs in dismay when she hears the telltale crunch.

“Oops…” He laughs sheepishly, setting her down carefully. 

She shakes her head, not quite knowing what has gotten into him or what she’s started. She crosses her arms, and waits patiently for him to collect the crumbled remains into the bag.

“Remember, don’t expect reciprocation. Just…know that, Chat.” She whispers quietly, and the pity in her look makes him freeze because it’s the pity of a kindred spirit…of someone who knows unrequited love and who cannot take their own advice.

“Princess, my only wish is her happiness. If I do all I can, then there’s nothing to regret, right?” 

His smile is bright as he waves goodbye, but the tension of his jaw and the taut lines of his back don’t go unnoticed.

But still she envies him, because even as he leaps through the air and onto the next rooftop, he’s not running away.

She cries at that…because she’s only encouraged him and she knows the outcome already. She’s cruel. She’ll run away again. Ladybug is built on self-preservation after all. So she says this to the cold night air, the winking  lights, the laughing moon and happenstance…

_“You deserve better than me, Chat Noir.”_


	5. Comme ci, Comme ca

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which luck is somewhere in the middle and identities are further separated and joined. Also the chapter where Adrien says too much and Marinette too little.

It’s spring, but she feels cold.

Her armor rests heavy against her chest, and the lacquered plates shine their deep red and black under the sunlight sieving through the sakura tree in full bloom. Her red hakama are voluminous and billow softly in the tepid, muggy breeze that travels from the south.

But it’s all so suffocating. Like a beetle’s shell, it protects and binds her. She almost tears out the miraculous from her ears, but there is something that must be done before she can. And the helmet that obscures her thin face hides her trepidation and heartbreak.

She feels it when he arrives. She always does.

He is silent, save for the clattering of his kama slung on his back, the sickles as sharp and shining as his claws. He is a shadow against the light, a spot of dearly beloved dark in a place where color is stifling and duty is placed above all.

He notices her displeasure. He always does.

“Your smile is upside down, my love.” His words are sweet, enticing, and she almost gives in.

But she has lived too long to fall for mere words. She’s long since fallen for his actions, but he’s fallen for the beauty of her shell. He’s fallen for the Lady. He fell for a bug. He wouldn’t fall for the scarred little village girl underneath it all.

_“Whom do you love, little cat? The beetle or me?”_

It’s only then that she tears out her miraculous, and she is left exposed.

He doesn’t leave. But the distance between them grows until eventually they separate.

She never sees his face or knows his name. But days later, Tikki takes pity on her and whispers behind her locks of dark hair that her the little cat is there. There in the procession celebrating the prince’s marriage to a foreign princess.

It’s such a lovely warm day, with banners waving in the wind and fineries decorating the streets. There is dancing and food and there are blooming flowers crowning the newlyweds as they ride on the finest of horses to the palace in the distance.

And the prince’s smile is so painfully familiar as he glances at his pretty, lovely bride. It’s a smile he gives to the people he loves. She notices it right away. She always does.

So she says good-bye and congratulates just like the rest of the villagers and hides her scarred hands in the folds of her fraying sleeves.

Spring is here, but she feels cold. She thinks to herself that the cherry blossoms look like snow as they drift down.

* * *

It rarely snows in Paris.

The weather seems to vacillate between doing so and not. It almost decides to, but instead lets loose a torrent of water. It doesn’t snow often. But when it doesn’t, it pours.

It’s a quiet day in December, and the rain bounds cheerfully across every surface it can reach. It’s bubbling laughter seems just the tiniest bit mocking as it hits his black umbrella, but he’s in too much of a state to really care.

“Looks like we’ll have a wet Christmas, instead of a white one.” Plagg says offhandedly, burrowing deeper into the folds of Adrien’s gray peacoat. (It’s warmer here than in Adrien’s bag.) His tone is blithe, but there’s a funny bite to it that fits with the laughing tip tap of the rain droplets.

When Adrien doesn’t answer and his pacing resumes, Plagg becomes a little worried. The tension is palpable…almost unpleasant and his chosen is wavering in a way he’s never had the displeasure of witnessing.

The high pitched squeaking and squelching of Adrien’s sneakers against the wet concrete is deafening in the quiet stillness that settles over this neighborhood on rainy days. Plagg wonders if Adrien will eventually slip up, in one way or the other.

“Just knock the door. You need the help.” Plagg admonishes, eyes flashing briefly in annoyance and tail twitching in consternation. He flexes his little claws against Adrien’s side.

It doesn’t hurt. Not really. But it’s enough to startle Adrien into stopping and hissing softly in surprise, rubbing at the place where Plagg’s claws had dug into.

“Ouch, Plagg! That was uncalled for.”

“You’re losing your sang-froid. Why are you scared? Perhaps you love her?”

Adrien stops cold, his breathing shortens until it’s only marked by the sharp and short rise of his chest, the tiniest puffs of condensation stream from his mouth.

It seems a little absurd, that he should be so scared. But something Plagg has said resonates within him, and oh boy is he in trouble because he feels a bubbling warmth in the pit of his belly.

Twisting, writhing, _pleasant_.

“THAT’S NOT IT!”

“Then?”

“I…I just-”

He just what? He just doesn’t trust his feelings around Marinette. He just hates the guilt that wells up at the same intrusive thoughts. He just feels the strangest urges to run his hands through her hair, and loop his fingers through the cheerful red ribbons, to place his lips on hers and taste the powdered sugar that lingers from their forays into baking.

He is just as tangled and rough and misshapen as the scarf he carries in his bag, and it’s making him cold. As cold as the rain hopping maddeningly from the sidewalk, as frigid as the legacy he’s been left with.

He’s just a another failure. Another story of _almosts_.

“Whom do you love, the beetle or me?”

This is the question. His predecessor hadn’t been able to love the girl. His silence had told a story thousands of years old, stretching surely and steadily, looming as unlucky as -

“Not unlucky. Just have bad luck.” Adrien reminds himself softly, and digs his chin a little more into his scarf to fight the chill that has suddenly run down his spine.

“Whom do you love, Adrien?” Plagg asks knowingly, and his green eyes are glowing with something more frightening than his mild annoyance. It’s expectation, and sad…so sad.

And it might be the maddening rhythm of the rain, or the heady feeling of rushing headlong into something he has long held as a dream, but he wants to fight. He wants to shout and declare and challenge everything that comes between him and his feelings for his Lady.

But he’ll have to settle for stifled declarations and angry mutterings because Marinette is here and Christmas bells tinkle joyously as she opens the door to the bakery.

Her presence is noted immediately, commanding in the most subtle of ways. Even in her flour dusted pink apron and disheveled hair, the unassuming air she usually maintains around him has vanished in the warmth of her apologies and entreaties.

Her eyes are darker under the gray of the rain, but she has a soft smile on her face and an earnest edge to her voice as she pulls him inside.

“I’m so sorry. I just got your text! Please come in. Oh my gosh…How long have you been standing outside?”

Adrien vaguely notes that Plagg is once again nestled heavily into the largest pocket of his satchel. A rush of gratitude towards his kwami threads through his scattered thoughts.

He folds his umbrella mechanically, making sure to shake out the remaining droplets of rain.

“Not long at all. I was just…preoccupied.”  He excuses himself, shuddering a little when she takes his hand in hers and leads him inside.

Marinette’s hand is warm on his, tugging him insistently until the door tinkles closed behind them and he is in the stifling coziness of a somewhat crowded bakery. The din is pleasantly numbing, and he has to stop himself from commenting on the kind-of-nice-way that the multi-colored Christmas lights ringing the small bakery scintillate across Marinette’s hair.

He has to keep up a mantra of declarations just to remember his decided course. _I love Ladybug. No matter what. I love Ladybug. No matter what._

Marinette, oblivious as always, merely rushes to accommodate her guest with all the warmth of a member of a Dupain-Cheng family member.

“Just hold on a sec! I need to clean up a bit!” Her words tumble out, and her cheeks are flushed with what he can’t exactly tell yet. But she’s so animated and quick and lovely that he can’t help but laugh.

“It’s okay. Take your time.” He reassures her and settles himself in a corner to happily converse with her parents.

He pretends not to notice the suggestive glances they share between them nor the way they tease and cajole their daughter as she takes off her apron and sorts out her work station.

Sabine even offers him free sweets between customers, smiling in that way that says _“Welcome-to-our-home”_ and he can’t help but smile right on back.

* * *

It’s only taken four weeks’ worth of knitting help and being a regular customer (both in and out of costume), but he finds himself happily ensconced into the dynamic of Marinette’s seemingly hectic life.

And before he knows it, Marinette is directing him with a huff. There is a small bit of lingering awkwardness between them, but her impatience, however much hidden, tells him she’s much more comfortable with him.

“No need to rush. It’s Saturday.” He says lightly.

He regrets it when she stiffens slightly. She nearly stumbles on a step in front of him. Adrien’s hands rise to steady her, but before he can, she’s already making her way up again. A flush sprawls across the back of her neck. She’s still nervous. Adrien wonders if there will ever be a time where she can act as naturally and relaxed with him as with Chat Noir.

“Ah-ah…yeah…You’re right.” She turns to smile at him, but it’s strained and her knuckles have turned white gripping the railing.

She’s glad no one can see them now. The strains of small talk and “how is your family“ conversations are faint on this level of the stairs. She can see her living room and kitchen just over the top step and Adrien is awfully close behind her. The pattering of the rain is louder now, hard and demanding against the panes of her living room window.

It is warm however, and the golden glow of her family’s tree is a good accompaniment to the silent him of the heater. He catches brief glimpses of red ribbons and tinsel and silver baubles before he’s ushered up to the second set of stairs.

But still, as she turns the corner and into her room, he sees the faintest of smiles curling her lips, and there’s a pleasant sort of happiness that mingles with her usual excitement.

It seems the golden glow of Noel has made its way all the way up to her room too. Fairy lights string the edges of her room, looping happily over her desk and computer and bed. There’s lopsided silver tinsel that laces her windows and a crooked wreathe on her bedroom door.

It’s not perfect. But it’s wonderfully Marinette.

She herself notes the quiet that lingers between them. She wonders if her meager, haphazard decorating is distasteful to him, especially since he must be used to immaculate and best-quality holiday accoutrements.

“It’s really nice.“ Adrien comments off-handedly, but it’s all the reassurance she needs.

“Oh Umm…thank you! I did it just yesterday.” She tries to be blase, but she’s really too happy to keep her smile at bay. Then she remembers that it is cold and he still has his coat on.

“You can take off your coat and sit down. Do you want something warm to drink?” She offers wholeheartedly, just like always. Quickly, she begins to clear her work space behind the desk chair so he can be more comfortable.

And it’s just the way she is. She would do it for anyone, he has to remind himself as he sits down across from her.

_‘It’s not a special preference’_

But he still cannot deny the disappointment that dampens his mood at that thought. Still, he likes to think that they are friends. He has some place in her life, however complicated and odd. She’s Marinette and he’s Adrien. She’s Marinette and he’s Chat Noir. Two halves of a whole that like this pretty, kindly friend very much.

_If I hadn’t met My Lady…_

_If…If…Another almost._ It’s one that’s a little bittersweet because she’s the one he should fall for. Unfortunately, his on-time luck isn’t too good. His last minute luck is the one that saves him. Chat Noir and Adrien are becoming synonymous in his own thoughts.

And it’s quite evident that he’s a little of both now when he answers her question-

“No thanks! I’m purr-fectly fine!”

She nearly drops a tin box filled with needles and thread, and the fumbling clatters are a bit deafening, even with rain drumming against the glass.

“Did…you just make a pun?” She says breathlessly, and suddenly his green eyes and golden hair are a lot more painful than they used to be. Puns and laughter are something she shares with Chat Noir more than anyone. It’s their thing, and she wonders at the guilt that eats away at her buoyant happiness today.

Marinette feels something inside her twist at the thought that sharing puns is somehow a betrayal of the lowest kind. But that’s a silly thought, isn’t it?

Stubborn and a bit chafed with herself and her Kitty, she decides to play along. Guilt be damned. Chat Noir does not have a special claim for puns.

“Well then, tail me Adrien, do you want cookies and milk?”

“I don’t know about that, claws I’m pretty full after all the treats your mom gave me.” He smiles back, and there’s an emotion unknown. It is pleasant and much less shallow than his feelings usually are as Adrien. The aching hurt that plagued him at the beginning of his day was fading to a dull throb.

He’s forgotten to keep up the mantra too.

“Okay then, Mr. Cat! If you’re not hungry, we can start with the knitting?” Marinette suggest kindly, humor still winking in her pretty blue eyes. She feels a surge of pride in her banter. She thinks she hears a quiet little cheer from the corner of her room under her pillows from where Tikki is supposed to be hiding.

Adrien seems not to notice. He laughs a little sheepishly at that.

“I really need help.”

“Oh. I’m sure it can’t be that bad.” She reassures him as he reaches into his bag.

Marinette looks on as Adrien pulls out his project.

It’s a scarf, she can tell that much. The quality black and red yarn she had so painstakingly chosen at his request is riddled with wide gaps. Small threads hang from where the yarn is fraying because of too much pulling. It’s almost complete too, at a length of about two feet. The rows are uneven, curving oddly in places where Adrien had made one too many knots and puckering where he has knitted one too few.

“Oh…” Marinette says.

“Oh.” Adrien mirrors with a wry grin. “I told you I needed help.”

And then unexpectedly, a burst of laughter escapes from her. It’s small, and she tries to stifle it by pressing her hands over her mouth. But Adrien finds himself laughing too, enough so that she stops covering her mouth and joins him too.

Her laugh is full and pleasant and it reminds him of the  golden lights that light her room. It’s the same as the warmth of the downstairs bakery and the touch of her hand on his. It’s the same as her imperfectly perfect decorations because she has this weird little breath in between every couple guffaws and it’s all her.

It’s all Marinette.

He thinks to himself that he’s glad he’s promised her a scarf, and even if the scarf he made her was as terrible as the one he wanted to give to his Lady, he thinks she would accept with as much warmth and good humor as she displays now.

He’s so caught up in the moment, that he forgets.

“I know. It’s so terrible that I don’t think Ladybug would know what it’s supposed to be.”

Ah…here it is. His bad luck. Not anyone else’s, but his and his alone.

“Wha..What did you say?”

Marinette is pale…her face is sallow now, despite the warm lighting and her eyes are wide open.

_I love Ladybug. No matter what._

The mantra is what he clings to and it is with dark humor that he realizes just how bad his luck is. His love for Ladybug is most likely unrequited. And in one misguided sentence, he may have revealed himself.

“I mean I…I said…Ladybug wouldn’t know what it’s supposed to be.” He replies, and he is stiff and awkward once more. His knuckles are as white as the Christmas Paris will most likely never see, and his fearful because a safe spaced has now become fraught with a danger he has never wanted.

“The…the scarf is for Ladybug?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Oh.”

Marinette is frozen stiff, the previous warmth of her room seems to fled out the window and been beaten down by the heavy rain. There are a thousand questions in her mind, and among them are _“how do you know her?_ ” and _“what kind of feelings are you knitting?_ ” and so on. But Adrien…Adrien is sitting so alone on her desk chair, asking her for help. He looks forlorn and scared, and no matter how much her heart races and breaks all at once, she wants to help him. There’s a harrowing duality to her emotions and it’s too much. She settles for a familiar line of thinking.

She isn’t Ladybug. She’s almost her. But Ladybug doesn’t feel as deeply as Marinette. Ladybug can’t love in the way a normal person does.

Adrien cares for an idea…an idol…in very much the same way as Chat Noir does.

It hurts so much, that it’s almost better for her to pretend. To stuff it all down into the growing brambles of jealousy in her heart and save her tears for later. So she does just that.

She nods her head decisively, fisting her hands into the hem of her sweater.

“Ah…okay. We should fix it then!” She says brightly, a little shrilly and she wonders if he can hear the slight hysteria in her suggestion. ‘So much for Ladybug.’

Adrien’s eyes had been downcast, fixed on the scarf curled in his lap. But as soon as she speaks..as soon as she suggests fixing the scarf… he places it on the workbench behind him and he stand up. His expression is inscrutable.

He crosses the space in between them. Wordlessly, he places his hands on her shoulders and pulls her up from her divan and forwards.

He is warm. Warm and surprising and welcoming and familiar in the strangest of ways.

“Thank you, Marinette.” Is whispered into her hair as he tightens the embrace.

She returns it, tightening her grip on the back of his jacket and she’s grateful that however awkward it is that he hasn’t taken it off. It’ll make it easier to hide the tears that fall onto soft black material.

The day keeps raining and feelings are heard and feelings are hurt, but Marinette can’t decide if her luck is good or bad at all.

_‘I guess luck is perspective after all.’_


End file.
